Team Building Resources

Yes rewarding failure can be a very motivating experience, why? Because often what stops individuals and ultimately teams rising to their full potential is the fear of failure.  They don’t take risks or push to higher levels if the atmosphere is, or is perceived to be one of mistakes are not allowed.

As humans we know mistakes are inevitable.  I’m not suggesting you reward every mistake but a few well chosen opportunities can go a long way to setting a culture that is accepting of mistakes and learns from them.  As well as benefiting from all the innovation and creativity it releases. 

So evaluate the mistakes/failures through the following lens and when appropriate choose a recognition technique that best communicates the message and treats the individual or individuals involved with respect.

1. Was the mistake driven by someone trying something new and innovative?
2. Did the individual and or team learn something from the experience that will be beneficial in the future?
3. Were the consequences of the mistake contained and manageable?
4. Will the individual or team that made the mistake be comfortable with the details being shared publically?

If you answered yes to each of these questions then it’s an ideal opportunity to use this example to reward the intention of trying to achieve better results.  Don’t just reward failure once as it will be seen as a passing idea of the month.  That said make sure you reward success more often, it’s great to create the culture of being accepting of failure but you don’t want to go too far in actively promoting it.

Self motivation is by far the most powerful and sustainable form of motivation.  That said we don’t always have all doors open to us.  As a manager of an effective team you can help keep individuals highly motivated by opening doors for them.  Give high performance team members exposure to your management team or an area of the company that they aspire to be promoted or move to in the future.  Keep the following points in mind though to ensure all involved get the most out of the experience:

1.  Determine your team members comfort level in presenting:
   • Some will love to be on stage and simply need you to open the door – review in advance their role and guidelines on “airtime”.
   • Some will love to be “in the room” but need multiple visits to feel comfortable presenting – bring the team member along and introduce them as a significant contributor and with you to hear feedback, give the credit and acknowledgement but don’t push for too much too fast.
2. Be respectful of the audience – gain their buy in, in advance to ensure you aren’t bringing a team member to a meeting that was planned to review confidential information.
3. Plan out your opportunities in advance but don’t “fill the slot” if the fit between the person, role and meeting is not the right match.

This form of recognition will both motivate individuals and demonstrate your commitment to the development of your team members.

“I don’t have time”! How often do each of us say this everyday or at least think it.  But we also know we make time for what we think is important. 

Motivating each of our team members is something worth making time for.  However, false praise is worse than no praise at all, it re-inforces bad behaviour and most importantly demotivates the team members who do deserve accolades for their efforts and achievements.  When you want a team operating at peak performance you do need an overall motivated team.  So make a plan:

1. Create a weekly plan – put together a chart of all the team members.
2. Note for each team member how they would like to be praised/recognized – publicly or privately.
3. Each week challenge yourself to recognize at least one team member- in the team members prefered method

Rotate through each of the team members, key rule – do not praise/recognize unless fully deserved you don’t have to go through the list in a linear manner, just be cognizant of how often you have recognized or not recognized each individual.  If you find there is someone that you are never in a position to praise/recognize take steps to rectify by digging deeper into why that is and manage through to end up with a team of self motivated individuals that make your motivating job an easy one.

Lynn

Team Enthusiast

How individuals are best motivated needs to fit best with the individuals preferences I’ll cover 4 different perspectives which should address the majority of team members.  However, prior to determining how to best motivate I’d like to cover off the overarching need to “SEE” each individual.  David Zinger made an interesting post Employee Engagement: I See You.  David’s key point was that in order to engage and ultimately motivate you need to “see” people as the first form of recognition.  David references an interesting YouTube video that tests your awareness, try it out, Awareness Test,  it took me 5 times viewing it to figure it out.

Here are 4 different perspectives on how best to “recognize” an individual based on 4 different personality preferences:

1. In front of the group – for the individuals who are the highly competitive, do things quickly and want to move on to the next.  
   • a quick team huddle with an acknowledgement of the good work and impact the individual has had will fit the bill
2. Publicly in writing – for the individual who likes structure and order. 
   • a congratulatory email or a write up in the office newsletter, acknowledging the achievement will work best
3. One on one- for the individuals who are always asking “why” they like to work independently, looking at the big picture and solving the problems.
   • a face to face acknowledgement with a hand shake will satisfy their need to be recognized
4. Hand written thank you note – for the individual who is always focused on pulling the team together and creating harmony
   •  pick up a thank you card and hand write a small message of praise and thanks, the personal connection will go a long way to motivating this individual

Seeing each team member clearly and then adjusting the recognition that best fits their personality type will make your recognition efforts go a lot further in motivating them to continue to perform to the best of their abilities.

Lynn – Team Enthusiast

Keeping teams motivated is a never ending journey, this is the first installment in an ongoing series of quick ideas to recognize team members and keep them motivated.

1. Do you have a top employee that you would like to reward in an unconventional way?  Odds are office/file clean up is not high on the list of activities but it is necessary.  Create some free time for your top employee by hiring or borrowing some time from your administrative assistant to spend 3 hours taking care of things.
2. Do you have a prime parking spot that is the envy of your employees, why not give it up for a week and reap the rewards of this small act of kindness.
3. Do you have an employee that  has recently put in lots of extra time, odds are their families have noticed, think of an appropriate gift that you could send to the employees partner, perhaps a bunch of flowers or a magazine subscription.  This is an unconventional way that could make a big impact.

Let me know if these work or if you have used some really successful recognition techniques we could share with others.

Lynn

Team Enthusiast